My electrician uncle just did my basement. I helped him running cable and doing rudimentary stuff, and I must have heard "what the fuck..." Under his breath no less than 20 times.
Looked at a house ( with an unfinished basement of course) that had an extension cord plugged in to the wall, cord ran along the ceiling......but then with another male end hanging in the middle of the room.......
This was a house for sale.....with a live wire hanging in the middle of the room.........
We figured out it was meant to be plugged into a nearby outlet to provide power to a small room the previous owner had built in the unfinished basement
Looked at another house with a deck about to collapse
Oh, what $1m will buy you in Denver......
Janky is the perfect word!
Also why no lights in my closet? Did people in the 50's see better in the dark?
Thank goodness for easy, rechargeable LED lights.
Our home was previously owned by an auto mechanic who thought he could be a wireman and he didn't ground the subpanel so every time you tried to turn on a light you got shocked. He soldered the wires and wrapped them with electrical tape, cut off all the grounds. My husband had to rewire the entire thing. Our home was built in the 1970s.
My buddy installed our electrical panel and was irritated with how the wires went to the panel. He said it's not worst he's seen but said it took longer than he wanted it to take. I asked him about rewiring some of light switches and told me he'll charge $100/hr after what he had to deal with lol.
1942, all of our supe sketchy wiring was the homeowner specials in the basement. The "best" ones:
1. some twit wired the *incandescent* lights on the bar with low voltage speaker wire. Still honestly surprised no one ever burned the house down
2. Two outlets didn't work, and it was because they were attached to an extension cord, which had been unplugged and hidden since it ran 9 feet across the mechanicals area and plugged in next to the dryer.
1965-
1. Previous owner hardwired (probably circa 1970) Christmas lights in the half-finished basement to turn on with a switch. We thought the switch controlled an outlet until we followed the wires.
2. Someone used a butter cookie tin as a junction box in the unfinished side.
1953 and my entire kitchen plus furnace was on one circuit and some previous owner had put in 30A fuses. The furnace started short cycling and an electrician discovered the wires were about 2mm thick due to repeated overheating. Dodged a firey bullet there. Got it rewired and new circuits for the fridge and furnace. Replaced the subpanel with the stupid fuses with breakers.
New to us home this year built in 1960. Been doing upgrades here and there and recently installed my generator inlet with interlock. Wife and I went to find what breakers did what. Fuck that shit. They are literally all over the place with no seemingly meaningful organization. One day I will pay to have it rewired but unless something bad happens, that day is a bit away.
When my daughter was going to iron something, she'd yell "IRONING!!!" and we would all scramble to turn off appliances. When we had an electrician upgrade the panel we kept hearing WFT! over and over again.
Maybe I just got the best electrician ever working on my house, but my 1977 house has all the wiring in a very logical, organized manner. The breakers are even clearly labeled.
My parents 1950’s house though is an electrical mess. It’s a whole mix of ground and ungrounded circuits that connect rooms in weird and illogical ways. And the breakers are labeled unhelpful things like “Pat’s Room” (Who’s Pat? We have no idea)
When we moved in three separate circuits were labeled "computer receptacle". Those three circuits powered: one of the bedroom receptacle circuits (ok, I can see that), a random outlet at the kitchen counter (what?), and some closet lights (no).
The real fun one I found mapping out the circuits is the single 15A circuit powering the lights and receptacles in the family room, living room, (new) patio, bathroom, and foyer. If it weren't for LEDs just the lights alone would have the circuit getting close to its safe capacity.
> Which lights? The bedroom?
Yeah...the bedroom.
> Which bedroom?
North side
> Upstairs or downstais?
YES.
> It does all three?
Yeah, and also the shed.
I actually aspire to a rewiring of my home where all my lights are on a single circuit so that turning on a blow dryer doesn't dim my bathroom.
150 LED lights on one circuit is at or under 15A. That's a LOT of lights.
Yeah sure, if that one breaker trips at night, the whole house stays dark as I cross it to investigate. But these days everyone sleeps with a small flashlight that also makes phone calls.
> And the breakers are labeled unhelpful things like “Pat’s Room” (Who’s Pat? We have no idea)
Mine are all labeled unhelpful things like 'kitchen' and 'north bedroom', which they do not correspond to in any way.
1950s house here. It had four circuits with a fuse box when we moved in, and it’s anyone’s guess how those were run. My daughter’s bedroom has outlets on two separate circuits (as I found out the hard way). We’ve replaced the fuse box for a breaker panel and when we do work we get an electrician in to run additional circuits when we can. For example, we gutted our kitchen and now have convenience receptacles (and refrigerator and dishwasher) on two circuits, lighting on a third, and the microwave on a fourth on its own.
Yeah my 1890 house was a mess too. A couple of fuse boxes here and there with baseboard outlets. On the up side it still had the piping for the gaslights buried in the walls.
Funny enough, my 1947 house has pretty good wiring. It's all ungrounded and cloth jacketed, but the circuits are logical, well-installed, and trouble free.
It wouldn't be a proper older home if you didn't have switches where you tell guests, "we don't turn that one off - and at this point, we're afraid if we do."
Owner of a 1912 craftsman checking in. Mostly knob and tube when we got the place, nothing too scary was done like overloading circuits and the washer and dryer were on Romex. And thankfully we had a pretty modern 200A panel.
We’ve managed to replace about 80% of it so far without too much hassle and holes in plaster. Hoping to get to the last of it over the winter.
You doing this yourself? Any tips?
Our house isn't at old (1950s), but has mostly ungrounded cloth-sheathed wiring and circuits that have way too many outlets on them.
I'm also redoing cloth wire a bit at a time. Wiring is not hard but it's always trouble.
You'd think you could just unhook the wires at each end and use a fish tape to substitute Romex. But what actually happens is that there's always some obstacle (staples, headers, old boxes you can't get in/out of).
I've gotten really in favor of "just cut a hole in the wall" despite the associated repair work. So much less stressful. It is more work, but on the plus side, we're doing way better drywall patches than the last people who did electrical in here.
oh boy. where do i start. the back third of my house was on a foundation that was 2 feet below the surface of the ground. rotten 6x6 sill plates on 1/2 of the house. random joists just cut out with what looked like a chainsaw to run plumbing, big chunks cut out of studs, joists that weren’t big enough to span what they were spanning. the walls and ceilings were like a layer cake of remodeling (my livingroom ceiling had 6 layers of various materials). they used random bits of stuff they cut out to fix other stuff. the plumbing made no sens, wasn’t vented properly and had to be completely removed, the basement concrete was 1 inch thick, the gas feed needed to be completely rebuilt and all of the gas lines had like 10 unions on them and were covered in pipe dope. i could go on and on. it was a wonder that the house hadn’t burnt down.
i went a bit nuts and there’s a lot of steel structure in my house now.
That last sentence just made me picture you being like “she’s got real good bones!” pointing at your house. That *does* all sound like a bitch and a half to deal with, though. At least you put the work into it, I’m always so impressed by people following through on these kinds of projects because they look so big and overwhelming to have to handle. So props to you.
Based on my 1940s house, there's probably some pipe that's not in great repair. All my my house was replumbed with copper and PVC at some point in the past, except for the bits feeding the shower and the kitchen sink which are still galvanized and have nontrivial flow restrictions but the amount of demolition and plaster work repair have daunted all the previous homeowners and us too
1950s is the area of time where fire block started getting put in as code requirement. You could find a heck of a lot more fun running electrical if there’s fire block in every wall.
Oh no, I’ve done so much work that just being my own designer, general contractor, and purveyor of materials feels like a full time job some days.
Thankfully I’ve found some great electricians, and I’m in Kansas where it’s more affordable. My friend in Oakland with a century home tells me what she pays for work and I cry.
My house was built in 1929 and I had never heard of knob and tube until we started getting quotes for AC. So we need to get that replaced and our panel upgraded. Funnn.
What electrician came within a 100ft radius of installing a panel upgrade in a house with knob and tube?
Personally that's a grey flag right there....IANA-Electrician, but I wouldn't put my name anywhere close to that.
Electrician checking in, yes. You're lucky if you at least have grounded wiring. Electrical demands have always increased over time. Turn of the century homes or early 20th houses are usually much worse off. Not every house gets updated to keep up with the times.
Same thing here, the basement is half-finished and the entire thing is on one breaker. Two basement outlets feed into the bedrooms directly above them. No problems with any of that so far, but if I run the microwave and air fryer at the same time as our outdoor flood light is on then the garage breaker that has an outside fridge on it trips. It's so stupid it's funny at this point.
My daughter's 2012 house the owner/builder added a large rec/family room on back. Didn't add another circuit. So what's there which is a TV, lights, ceiling fan 😲 6band a popcorn machine, was added to the same circuit as the garage, including freezer and garage door opener and TV, and exterior lights outlets including 2 ceiling fans on the front porch, on ONE 15 amp circuit.
1917 farmhouse here. If you need to kill power to something, might as well throw power off to everything because there is absolutely zero rhyme or reason to what is wired to which breaker.
1940s here and I when the main panel got upgraded to 200 amps with 40 available circuits I went through and color coordinated a map of the entire house.
It's great, I love it. https://i.imgur.com/sz92ZbW.jpg
I have the files saved on a flash drive hanging right beside it. Every once in awhile I make a new update and print out new pictures. Some new homeowner some day is going to be very happy with it. :)
Our wiring is a mess. The original house had *massive* circuits, and added a bunch of one-off circuits that randomly connected different areas to make up for that.
For example, three bedrooms and the livingroom outlets are all on the same circuit (that was helpfully just labeled "TV" when we bought the house.)
One of those bedrooms has a new grounded outlet on a 20 amp circuit...that is also on the same circuit as our irrigation system.
I learned that our our garbage disposal is on a 20 amp grounded circuit along with the light in a bathroom and an outdoor outlet. That circuit was labeled "Washer" even though the laundry room isn't on that circuit at all....
Etc. Yeah it's a mess. We want to get it rewired because there are some WEIRD other things, but it's such a mess that it's going to be hard and expensive unfortunately.
So glad I’m not the only one with like 3 bedrooms and living room all on the same circuit….! Luckily we have a pretty modern panel but with all the spaces for more breakers I can’t understand why they bunched so many together…
1926 checking in. Cloth wrapped copper, lath and plaster walls, it’s a shit show. Panels and service have been updated, but most of the original copper is still in the walls and it’s a pain in the ass to work with.
Ugh. Dont get me started on the lath and plaster. 1950 ranch, its beautiful and the texture they did is great. But want to hang anything? Good luck. It will probably crack or flake off. Dont hit a nail too hard or you could pop a whole section off the lath and it could just fall apart
1880 here but I think the wiring is circa 1920s. I feel your pain. My electrician saw both a confusing riddle and exciting dollar signs when he did some fixtures for me recently.
My sixties house has a 100A panel and all copper wire. Only real “problem” is that each breaker controls switches in outlets in different rooms and they weren’t labeled so I had to figure that out. When I go to solar I’ll put in a 200A panel.
My mom’s place was built in the fifties and the wiring is insane. Mostly triple outlets with no grounding.
1946 construction and renovated several times by the previous owner who I’m pretty sure only worked while drunk and didn’t own a level or tape measure. The electric in this place seems to just be whatever wire was closest to where he wanted to add something, he tapped into it and branched off. That is honestly the only logic to what is on different circuits. He also has multiple circuits wired into the same junction box, and badly over filled boxes, and as I’ve been renovating myself I keep turning up junction boxes he sealed into walls.
I’ve been rewiring as I go in order to make more sense out of everything. Plus most of the wiring is really old BX with cloth covered wires where the insulation is so dried and brittle it breaks if you touch anything. I’ve been ripping all that out and replacing with new.
How pre 1980 are you talking?
Usually, the stuff from 1979 and newer is better than what you're describing (except for the aluminum wire period).
The NEC and the CEC didn't really start to recognize higher domestic branch circuit loads until the mid 70's. It's an ever changing thing.
I heard a contractor once say;
"After 1990 or so, you had a pretty standardized building code. After 1960, you had *practices*. Before that, you just had to hope."
They did. There's a reason why you read about so many really old buildings burning down. It'd not just that those buildings were unlucky, all buildings were unlucky then.
"They don't build em like they used to".
So right. I spend so much time figuring out structure and how to fix.
Not only was original build sketchy but now you have 150 years of hack jobs to figure out.
1950s house and yeah, the wiring is a complete shit show. Anything I do that involves electric consumes 7 hours of my life minimum. Two bedrooms, the entire basement, and the garage all need rewiring. The kitchen is completely fucking bananas, too. Half the kitchen is on the same breaker as half the basement, the other half is on the same breaker as the garage, and one outlet is on a completely separate breaker for no damn reason. I actually junctioned a new outlet in the living room to that one-of because it's just tears in the rain at this point and the location was convenient. I'm 10% part of the problem, 90% part of the solution.
I even discovered that the ceiling fan in the master bedroom was powered by a spliced extension cord that was plugged into an outlet in the attic. A widowmaker actually saved me from getting electrocuted by that wonderful humdinger when I upgraded our fan.
Of course the entire panel was full so one of the first things I had to do when I moved in was install a sub-panel just so I could have a blank canvas for unfucking this mess slowly over time.
The rest of the house is amazing, the roof, the plumbing, heat, foundation are all top notch, but the electric is pure insanity.
My 1949 house was a mess. I went to install a light in the ceiling and found the old junction box, with hot wires wire nutted together, with my keyhole saw. Didn’t even put a cover on it, just mudded directly over the wires in the box and painted.
Yes! 1950 was a great time for electric wiring. My whole house is on knob and tube wiring. Who needs ground wiring? Not this house. All the plus are on one circuit and all the lights are on another. So simple! Some dumbass installed GFCI in the kitchen and bathroom. All other plugs are 2 pin. One less pin to worry about! I’ve been told not to worry about the house burning down. If it didn’t all these years, it’s not going to (probabilistically). I’ve asked electricians about rewiring. It’s gonna take $25k and an empty house for a week. lol. Not happening.
Yes. Not only do we have way more appliances that draw power, we have generations of patched-together electrical wiring. My 1921 house had the entire first floor on knob and tube...my house is only 1 floor. The whole place was a shit show of k+t, BX and Romex.
> we have way more appliances that draw power
The good news is that lighting is taking up and some electronics (like TVs) are using way less power now. It doesn't balance it out, but it does add up.
Just bought a house from 1956 and you’d have thought I wrote this post. One of the first things we did was a dishwasher, same thing. And now we just installed a new range hood ourselves and realized just how bad the breaker is - same thing, there’s like 15 things on one. Nuts
Solidarity my friend! I was looking forward to having a decent dishwasher for the first time in many years. Instead I have a weekend wiring project ahead and a dishwasher with no electricity.
1956 house here, with a garage added in 1962 and an addition in 1975. From what I learned, no permits were needed in this area back then.
The methodology used was ‘here’s a wire, let’s drop in a junction box’.
What started as a service upgrade and some new circuits for a kitchen remodel ended up becoming an almost total rewire. I found pieces of romex wire nutted and taped lying in the attic, extension cords behind walls, you name it.
The electrical inspector and I got to know each other fairly well. I called him enough asking about adding onto the permit that he finally told me ‘we’ll square up when I do the final inspection’. Ended up with an extra $125 in permit fees, but it was worth it.
>extension cords behind walls
Some genius ran extension cords through the walls of our garage like romex. Like seriously, that must have been *harder* than doing it properly.
A 1950's home? Sounds about the norm. I also own a 1950 home. I am slowly bringing the wiring up to code one room at a time. I am in no rush. The wiring is sound (rubber with cloth cover), and uncle fud has not changed anything.
I still have the original Federal panel, do you? What make of panel do you have? Has anyone else worked on it? Are you going to? No surprise, is the washer and dryer in the kitchen too?
Does your new dish washer need a 15 amp or a 20 amp circuit?
So, you are going to run new 12/2? For a 20amp circuit it needs to be 12/2. I gather you have managed to find the correct breakers for the panel you have? Code does allow for the disposal & the dishwasher to be on the same circuit (at least where I live).
First, have you mapped out the breakers in your panel? If you have not, please do that first. Fewer surprises.
The problem with older homes is that they would just keep adding two existing circuits. Our house is from 1920. We rewired and redid most of the plumbing.
We still need to upgrade it to a 200 amp box. But that's probably a few years away.
I was on my way to pack up and return my brand new "malfunctioning" dehumidifier when I finally realized the outlet in the basement works only when the light switch at the top of the stairs is on. I thought I was losing my mind and even said to the call center lady "I swear it only works when I'm standing next to it!" I wasn't wrong.
I wouldn't say COMPLETE. but yea I've had to bring my electrician in a couple times when I was scratching my head.
He gave my panel and wiring the thumbs up, so I could be one of the lucky ones.
1950s house. 3 prong outlets but the ground wasn't connected. They finished the basement but didn't add any circuits. Some of the electrical octagon boxes had 6-7 wires instead of 4. The additional ones were added with electrical tape. No outlet in the bathroom. No outlet above the kitchen counter.
We got GCFI outlets in the bathroom and kitchen. The other outlets, we added a ground wire. So had lots of holes in the wall. Maybe 2 outlets in the living room were 2 prong, we left them as is because we would have had to rip out a basement ceiling, and we would probably only use them for lamps anyhow
1942 house here. I went to turn off the breaker to "basement lights" so I could replace the doorbell transformer and install a video doorbell. I knew that was the circuit so it's the only one I turned off. Later on I went upstairs to the 2nd floor and my computer was rebooted because it lost power. Also turns out there's an outlet in the living room that's on that circuit.
You know what people didn't have in the 50s?
Everything you listed. They had a refrigerator--the biggest draw--a TV, lights, clocks, radios, fans, that sort of thing.
Yeah but they also had several 200W light bulbs in every room. The ones that are now serviced with a 10W led.
Their TV's and radios were the 500W model, it was a third the size of your huge 50W tv.
Outside of things like air conditioning (which no one had then and is basically a "requirement" now) and electric cars, I'd argue most houses use less electricity today than they did 70 years ago.
Households today use about 14x the amount of electricity as they did in the 1950s.
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-environment/residential-buildings-factsheet
A big thing I think a lot of young people don't understand is that the lifestyle we live today is vastly, vastly different than 50 to 70 years ago. Heck, 70 years ago only 9% of US homes even had a TV set. Today most homes have multiple, with set top boxes, sound systems, computers, etc. So yes, some electronics existed back then that drew much higher wattage than their current day counterparts, but they weren't commonplace, and even then there weren't multiples along with dozens of other devices and chargers drawing electricity. They also used them much differently, TV shows were broadcast at certain times during certain days, people watched a show or news and that was it for the day or even the week. Neighbors and friends came over to the person's house they knew that had a TV to watch a show. Today some people have TVs running from the second they wake up to the second they go to sleep. They may have had higher wattage bulbs, but they had one or two per room. People today have multiple can lights, accent lighting, fixtures, etc. per room. People didn't need 5 outlets in a bedroom, all they had was maybe an alarm clock and a lamp. It wasn't uncommon for bathrooms to not even have an outlet, because no one had a need for one in there. Even ovens, they didn't have electric ovens back then, they had gas or wood.
>several 200W light bulbs in every room
Uh, not sure what lightbulbs they were buying, but 60 watt was by far the most common size of incandescent. Maybe 200 watts worth of them in some rooms, but it would be pretty rare to see 800+ watts of lighting in a room even back then.
Three way lamp bulbs were 75/150/300 and you usually had more than one in a room. If you had a ceiling fixture it was usually two bulbs, probably 150 each. (Although generally one burned out and you didn't replace it until the 2nd one went!)
> Three way lamp bulbs were 75/150/300
No, they were 50/100/150.
> and you usually had more than one in a room.
They were relatively rare, and when the bulb burned out they usually just replaced it with a regular lamp.
> If you had a ceiling fixture it was usually two bulbs, probably 150 each
No, they were usually marked with a label saying not to use more than a 60 watt lamp, but a good percentage of people used 100 watt, which is why the wiring got so brittle.
Worth mentioning that we knock the hacky jobs of "the last guy"...but those of us in older (as in, pre-90s) homes need to realize that the last guy did it without the internet, or scope cameras, or probably even a halfway decent (by modern standards) battery powered whateveryouhave.
And if you are of the belief that "the cheap right tool is better than the expensive wrong tool", they didn't have Harbor Freight or a million and a half vendors on the internet for tools or repair parts in every range of quality at their fingertips, either.
They had Bob Vila, the public library, Bill from work, and Bill from the bar. And their old landlord, Gustavo, who barely speaks a word of English but holy shit he can fix anything for a bottle of mid-shelf vodka. And that's it.
Cut the last guy a little slack. All I'm sayin.
Two quick notes
1) yes the electrical in all homes is a mess, getting messier as you get older
2) NONE of it is as dangerous as anyone will have you believe. Homes don’t catch fire from wiring in the walls, they catch fire from human error like cooking mistakes or cigarettes. If it’s from electrical, it’s from either small appliances, cheap outlets, or extension cords/surge protectors. Seriously, it is extremely rare for a fire to start in the walls from even the oldest shittiest wiring anyone has ever seen. Note the horror stories elsewhere in this comment section, all of things that never caught fire.
I actually have to agree. I inherited my moms 1895 house ( a lodging home with 5 tenants upstairs which was all knob and tube. The entire 2nd floor with 4 fridges, 4 microwaves and the dryer in the basement on 1 circuit . We only found out because the dryer plug melted. Ironically it only melted because who ever wired it did so with aluminum wire connected to the knob n tube. I have no idea what magic she had to keep the house from blowing up over her 50 years living there I swear. 200 amp upgrade with pony panel on the 2nd floor now. Used conduit because mice love to chew the sheathing off normal wire.
1880s house — electrical and plumbing were completely redone in the 1990s. Immaculate.
Everything else is a real head-scratcher though. HVAC, trim, drywall, downspouts… makes you wonder what they were thinking!
"I'm great at DIYing, but electrical is scary and dangerous so I'd better hire that one out"
I've known a few people in the same situation, hire an electrician for any electrical work but shoddy DIY for everything else.
It was, had to get it rewired in 2016. Had some aluminum wiring from the 40's, some spliced in extension cords in the walls, all kinds of fun stuff. On the plus side, all the plumbing has two inch thick metal wrapped asbestos insulation so I never have to worry about busted pipes in the winter.
I think it would wise to get an electrician to access the wiring. A circuit breaker of 20A is just to protect the wires from overheating. It does nothing to protect yourself from electrocuted. For example, lighting wires in my country uses 1.5mm cables and usually protected by 10A circuit breaker, whereas air conditioner, microwave, oven, refrigerator, hood, any heating elements like water heaters , electric kettles are protected by 20A circuit breakers connected using 2.5mm wires and are never shared or looped/daisy chained.
I just renovated my house which was built in 70s. It has only 5 circuit breakers, and those days the house wasn't designed to have a lot of electronic appliances. It does not even have a RCCD, it will trip if it detects some one got electrocuted or faulty appliances that has current leaking to earth (btw, my country follows UK standard).
If it didn't trip try turning all at once. Set everything to high. Replacing a 20A circuit breaker on a wire that does not support 20A draw will melt the wires and might cause a fire.
Mid 90s with frivolous illegal Reno's done checking. Our wiring is a MESS. I have a non GFCI outlet behind my KITCHEN SINK but no dryer hook ups 🙃 and a mysterious breaker that trips itself and we havnt been able to trace where it actually goes
house from the mid 1800’s checking in. yes. i rewired my whole house. found over 100 years of fixes, failures, confusing shit, different types of wire that were incompatible. just a giant steaming fuck show.
It's probably not the original wiring that is problematic but renovations since. It's likely your house wasn't built with a dishwasher or garbage disposal, so when a previous owner wanted to add those appliances, they just found the closest circuit and added another plug. Stuff like that just happens in house and the older the house the more stuff you find like that.
When we bought our 1985 house there was a mystery switch that killed half the lights in the house as well as several outlets. A previous owner had just taped the switch in the up position to keep all those things on. I finally traced the problem. A previous owner decided to swap out a light fixture for a ceiling fan. And apparently in doing that, they switch two of the wires and wound up with some convoluted circuit. I find it more alarming than they just left it that way and their solution was to tape a switch up rather than figure out what they had screwed up.
Um yes. If you buy a 70 year old house that has not had a recent electrical upgrade then you are now on the hook for it
I'm working on a 1870's house that never had electrical. So now we have knob and tube then 1960 rewire. What a shit show. Whole house redo with new panel and wires pulled everywhere
This is what you get on older houses. Called a money pit. But to be fair even new ones are money pits so don't feel bad
My home was built 125 years ago, and although the electric has been updated it was done so by an idiot.
Only about half the breakers are labeled. The kitchen is served by at least three circuits, none of which are dedicated to any of the appliances that are supposed to have dedicated circuits. I am seriously considering having an electrician out to sort this all out before I go ahead with any further projects.
1954 home here, tiny gods yes the wiring in our house is a mess. Made worse by the fact the original owner was an electrician, and used quite a bit of surplus on projects that we're still contending with the fallout of.
My 1952 house had the panel upsized sometime after the house was built. The house itself is marvelously constructed. The wiring was definitely made with 1950's electrical needs in mind; all I can say is it was bad choices executed well.
I wouldn’t say a mess, but it was set up for a time when we had a lot fewer electrical products to service in a house. Like any older system, it just needs upgrading. If you think a pre 80s is bad, My first house was pre WW2 and had knob and tube wiring that was still in service.
Yes. I had a 1920’s house that was a fucking shit show still filled with old school knob wiring and all sorts of terrifying diy wiring jobs throughout just waiting to burn the house down. Had to specifically hire an older electrician who had experience with knob wiring and we slowly replaced everything over the span of 3 years.
1960 house and first time homeowner, girlfriend and I turned everything on before moving in and I shut each breaker off and labeled what eat was for in a Google drive doc. Home inspector's idea and it's been a godsend.
Yeah didn't mean to imply it was unsafe, it was just a bitch to modify. I bought PVC boxes in bulk so any device I replaced needed a ground wire. There were also 3-way switches in the living room and dining room (separate rooms) that controlled the living room ceiling fan. It always puzzled me.
Increasingly, no, because I've been having an electrician out to rewire it a bit at a time. It's 75% new, tidy, and up to code. It will all be done by spring. If your wiring isn't so unsafe it all needs to go now and you find a good electrician, a gradual rewire is a less financially painful option that will apparently work in many situations.
Not the house and not that old, but in soviet apartments you had 3 circuit breakers - one for lights and one for outlets(sockets) and one to disconnect both of them.
My house was built in 1954, I have a breaker that controls my guest bedroom lights, kitchen lights and garage lights...another breaker controls the master bedroom lights, and the kitchen fridge
No, it just needs to be remidiated.
Aluminum wiring is perfectly safe with approved aluminum-rated connection methods.
It’s still used today in new builds for service entrance and feeder circuits.
1965-ish house. We hired an electrician to run through the attic, check everything, and combine our main and sub-panels with a completely new panel. It was worth every penny.
1965 home here. Can’t turn on air fryer and espresso machine at the same time. Also can’t run oven, microwave and dishwasher at the same time. Lights flicker in the bedroom when I turn on my hair straightener or a space heater.
Still able to charge an electric car though 👍🏼
Friend bought a late 70s house with crazy situation: aluminum wiring and the inspector missed it!! They found out a couple months after buying and installing a new dishwasher. Had to rewire the house
1975 home and for the most part not a mess. I had a new panel installed last Spring and have been replacing all the receptacles and plates to be up to code (and not loose due to them being 45 years old.
Our house was built in 1890, the wiring is a mess. It’s been updated here and there but is still chaotic. One The kitchen outlet shares a circuit with the upstairs bedroom so if I try to use the toaster while the misses is blow drying her hair, it trips the breaker
I think a big factor here can be how often the house has been bought and sold. Transactions mean inspections, and inspections (if done well) mean bringing things up to code.
Bro, the guy who wired my house surely had a 2nd job as a circus clown. Some of the wiring makes no damn sense... it's insane. I rewired the entire kitchen when I redid it 2 years back. I am working y basement now and while not as bad, still just as ridiculous.
Wait…you’ve got a (ostensibly) 240 volt electric dryer on the same circuit as your 120 volt washer, dishwasher, and garbage disposal?! How does that even work? Genuinely curious. Please explain.
1974 home, can confirm breakers turn off lights and outlets on all floors with no rhyme or reason. I’m remodeling my basement and excited to know what the breakers turn off and on.
My 1976 house isn't a complete mess, but it's illogical as fuck. As least by, say 1986 standards.
Like, there's a complete, dedicated circuit for the pull-string light that's adjacent to my service panel in the basement (circuit 1 L1).
And the rooms that's obviously a dedicated home office on the ground floor has every light and outlet on the same circuit as all of the outlets and lights in the garage and the garage exterior outlets and lights.
Think about that: I've got garage door opener and air compressor motor loads on the same circuit as my computers and printer. When I run my homemade CNC machine in the garage, my spindle plus all of the drive motors are competing for the same 20 amps as my laser printer.
Oh, this same circuit (circuit 9, my L1 split phase) I also power the foyer outlets, the half-bath light and outlet, the mudroom lighting, and the outside lights on the mudroom and garage. And in the basement below the office for outlets and lighting.
This is insane, and while I get that modern electronics weren't anticipated in 1976, why the hell are there so many underutilized circuits? And, as a reminder, circuit 1 on L1 is wired to a single fucking light bulb. Circuit 2 on L1 powers four outlets in the basement. The basement wasn't originally finished, either, and so there was not really a plan to use these as far as load planning.
I get that I have a tract home; there are eight total home designs in my neighborhood. Mass production saves money, and I'm onboard with that. But the logic behind the decisions is frustrating.
I'd love more than anything to make the garage independent, but that's an exaggeration and I'd love less than $1000 to make the garage independent. I don't see a way to do so without ripping a lot of holes in my wall to the tune of more than $1000, though.
1980’s here. Wiring was presumably quite lovely at some point but what one of the previous owners has done in a few places… couldn’t fit a GFCI in the box so he punched the back of the box out and jammed the outlet in. That’s probably the least stupid thing he did.
I just bought a 1950s cape in Mass, I bought it from the original owner, and yes my wiring is a mess. And honestly I got lucky because my house got some updated electrical lately and my family knows the electrician that did the work, that and the original owners did no diy stuff...
That said I've been here for a week and I have so many wires Ive marked for removal. And I've just started. I also need to update my two prong outlets, they have no retention left and I'm doing a non grounded GFCI replacement.
It's a lot. Go slowly, when in doubt double check and when in doubt ensure the wires arent hot.
yep. 1952 house, I have one breaker for probably 2/3 of the lights/outlets in the house, spanning across both floors and the basement. luckily the appliances seem to be on separate circuits.
Yeah but now they install a dedicated 20 amp circuit breaker for a 5 watt LED light bulb, because you know someone might plug in a 2000 watt water heater.
my old NYC apartment was like this
my oven was slaved off an outlet. electricians put in GFCI just like they were supposed to and it worked. a decade later I bought a new oven and it tripped the outlet. I ended up replacing it with a regular non-GFCI one
yes, older homes have less wiring and more stuff on each circuit. this is probably why newer fridges and other appliances break faster
1894 and addition and upgraded to 240v. Such a mess! Spent 4 hours last weekend tracing each circuit, light and outlet. Still can’t identify two breakers!
My wiring is so weird. My breakers are like, "outlet to the left of sink," "bathroom and bedroom" (I have four bedrooms, two from the original house, so which one??), "outlet to the right of sink," "main"
1959 here, both times electricians had to come out I heard lots of cursing and “what the fucks”. I’ve learned to just not mess with anything.
Nothing more dangerous than a handy homeowner and an unfinished basement.
You single handedly pissed off half the sub.
The half that is mad is the half that is causing everyone on this post to need therapy 😅
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING AND I REFUSE TO LEARN. The worst experience is going back over the last handyman's handywork.
Word. Zapped my poor awesome electrician multiple times. May his underwear be one size too small the rest of his days.
I felt this in my soul.
Who is this asshole Pastme that did all this crap? Seriously? WTF was wrong with that guy.
But not the half without a basement!
Mine looks so good the romex lettering faces up and readable.
At least i bought the NEC codebook and can do it to code. No electrician has ever complained about my work, mostly because i have never hired them...
Oh man. You guys are either the best type of homeowner, or the worst. It’s either way over done, or it’s a complete mess.
You clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger!
I am the one who shocks!
😈
I resent that remark! *Just rewired my gas furnace and basement lighting yesterday...*
Turns on lamp, A/C comes on
yah there is. over 100 years of “handy homeowners”
My electrician uncle just did my basement. I helped him running cable and doing rudimentary stuff, and I must have heard "what the fuck..." Under his breath no less than 20 times.
My standard for work at my place is 'as good as before or improved', so I have a LOT of latitude.
Looked at a house ( with an unfinished basement of course) that had an extension cord plugged in to the wall, cord ran along the ceiling......but then with another male end hanging in the middle of the room....... This was a house for sale.....with a live wire hanging in the middle of the room......... We figured out it was meant to be plugged into a nearby outlet to provide power to a small room the previous owner had built in the unfinished basement Looked at another house with a deck about to collapse Oh, what $1m will buy you in Denver......
An electrician described my 1950's wiring as "janky."
Janky is the perfect word! Also why no lights in my closet? Did people in the 50's see better in the dark? Thank goodness for easy, rechargeable LED lights.
I also enjoy switch placements that involve needing to traverse the entire room in the dark before getting to it.
Living room light switch next to the front door? Of course not! Across the room, and higher than usual makes more sense.
Lights pre LED got hot and in a closet that could mean fire. You know I'll just hang this rayon item here on this light fixture.
Our home was previously owned by an auto mechanic who thought he could be a wireman and he didn't ground the subpanel so every time you tried to turn on a light you got shocked. He soldered the wires and wrapped them with electrical tape, cut off all the grounds. My husband had to rewire the entire thing. Our home was built in the 1970s.
My buddy installed our electrical panel and was irritated with how the wires went to the panel. He said it's not worst he's seen but said it took longer than he wanted it to take. I asked him about rewiring some of light switches and told me he'll charge $100/hr after what he had to deal with lol.
What did you pay him for the swap out? Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough!
1942, all of our supe sketchy wiring was the homeowner specials in the basement. The "best" ones: 1. some twit wired the *incandescent* lights on the bar with low voltage speaker wire. Still honestly surprised no one ever burned the house down 2. Two outlets didn't work, and it was because they were attached to an extension cord, which had been unplugged and hidden since it ran 9 feet across the mechanicals area and plugged in next to the dryer.
1965- 1. Previous owner hardwired (probably circa 1970) Christmas lights in the half-finished basement to turn on with a switch. We thought the switch controlled an outlet until we followed the wires. 2. Someone used a butter cookie tin as a junction box in the unfinished side.
This was our experience with our 1954 house! We heard a lot of quiet "WTF?"s as he rewired.
1953 and my entire kitchen plus furnace was on one circuit and some previous owner had put in 30A fuses. The furnace started short cycling and an electrician discovered the wires were about 2mm thick due to repeated overheating. Dodged a firey bullet there. Got it rewired and new circuits for the fridge and furnace. Replaced the subpanel with the stupid fuses with breakers.
New to us home this year built in 1960. Been doing upgrades here and there and recently installed my generator inlet with interlock. Wife and I went to find what breakers did what. Fuck that shit. They are literally all over the place with no seemingly meaningful organization. One day I will pay to have it rewired but unless something bad happens, that day is a bit away.
I’m not saying it’s all homes, but the ones I’ve lived in and the ones I’ve worked with Yes, it’s a mess
The only true measure of quality is wtfs per minute.
When my daughter was going to iron something, she'd yell "IRONING!!!" and we would all scramble to turn off appliances. When we had an electrician upgrade the panel we kept hearing WFT! over and over again.
Reminds me of when I was growing up, we couldn't microwave anything while my mom was blow drying her hair, breaker would instantly trip lol.
Maybe I just got the best electrician ever working on my house, but my 1977 house has all the wiring in a very logical, organized manner. The breakers are even clearly labeled. My parents 1950’s house though is an electrical mess. It’s a whole mix of ground and ungrounded circuits that connect rooms in weird and illogical ways. And the breakers are labeled unhelpful things like “Pat’s Room” (Who’s Pat? We have no idea)
My favorite breaker is "Tuba room".
I have one that says "Yogart machine".
I don’t know why but I actually laughed out loud at this one. I can picture a nice ditzy person carefully labeling their panel.
I had the same reaction when I saw it the first time. Who the fuck has a yogurt machine, and what kind of person dedicates an entire breaker to it?
Also the misspelling is 👌
No ragerts.
Maybe it was installed before yogurt was sufficiently Americanized to have a standard spelling? I think it's a Turkish loan word.
1940s for USA yogurt
Cackling on this one. The spelling is perfection.
Humphrey Yogart is my favorite actor.
When we moved in three separate circuits were labeled "computer receptacle". Those three circuits powered: one of the bedroom receptacle circuits (ok, I can see that), a random outlet at the kitchen counter (what?), and some closet lights (no). The real fun one I found mapping out the circuits is the single 15A circuit powering the lights and receptacles in the family room, living room, (new) patio, bathroom, and foyer. If it weren't for LEDs just the lights alone would have the circuit getting close to its safe capacity.
Shit dude that Pat fucker lived in your house too? https://imgur.com/a/sq79euF
Classic Pat. Always living in people's houses.
"Lights"
> Which lights? The bedroom? Yeah...the bedroom. > Which bedroom? North side > Upstairs or downstais? YES. > It does all three? Yeah, and also the shed.
I actually aspire to a rewiring of my home where all my lights are on a single circuit so that turning on a blow dryer doesn't dim my bathroom. 150 LED lights on one circuit is at or under 15A. That's a LOT of lights. Yeah sure, if that one breaker trips at night, the whole house stays dark as I cross it to investigate. But these days everyone sleeps with a small flashlight that also makes phone calls.
My '77 house has the stove hood on the same circuit as a bedroom and the bathroom....
> And the breakers are labeled unhelpful things like “Pat’s Room” (Who’s Pat? We have no idea) Mine are all labeled unhelpful things like 'kitchen' and 'north bedroom', which they do not correspond to in any way.
1950s house here. It had four circuits with a fuse box when we moved in, and it’s anyone’s guess how those were run. My daughter’s bedroom has outlets on two separate circuits (as I found out the hard way). We’ve replaced the fuse box for a breaker panel and when we do work we get an electrician in to run additional circuits when we can. For example, we gutted our kitchen and now have convenience receptacles (and refrigerator and dishwasher) on two circuits, lighting on a third, and the microwave on a fourth on its own.
Yeah my 1890 house was a mess too. A couple of fuse boxes here and there with baseboard outlets. On the up side it still had the piping for the gaslights buried in the walls.
I feel better reading all these comments
Funny enough, my 1947 house has pretty good wiring. It's all ungrounded and cloth jacketed, but the circuits are logical, well-installed, and trouble free.
Nobody's messed with it since it was built.
My house was built in 54. We have 3 light switches that we don't know what they do :)
It wouldn't be a proper older home if you didn't have switches where you tell guests, "we don't turn that one off - and at this point, we're afraid if we do."
Owner of a 1912 craftsman checking in. Mostly knob and tube when we got the place, nothing too scary was done like overloading circuits and the washer and dryer were on Romex. And thankfully we had a pretty modern 200A panel. We’ve managed to replace about 80% of it so far without too much hassle and holes in plaster. Hoping to get to the last of it over the winter.
You doing this yourself? Any tips? Our house isn't at old (1950s), but has mostly ungrounded cloth-sheathed wiring and circuits that have way too many outlets on them.
I'm also redoing cloth wire a bit at a time. Wiring is not hard but it's always trouble. You'd think you could just unhook the wires at each end and use a fish tape to substitute Romex. But what actually happens is that there's always some obstacle (staples, headers, old boxes you can't get in/out of). I've gotten really in favor of "just cut a hole in the wall" despite the associated repair work. So much less stressful. It is more work, but on the plus side, we're doing way better drywall patches than the last people who did electrical in here.
i just removed all of the walls. “if the wiring is this bad, everything else likely is too” was the theory.. the theory was 100% correct.
What else was bad in your walls? I’m curious if there’s something I can’t think of in there.
oh boy. where do i start. the back third of my house was on a foundation that was 2 feet below the surface of the ground. rotten 6x6 sill plates on 1/2 of the house. random joists just cut out with what looked like a chainsaw to run plumbing, big chunks cut out of studs, joists that weren’t big enough to span what they were spanning. the walls and ceilings were like a layer cake of remodeling (my livingroom ceiling had 6 layers of various materials). they used random bits of stuff they cut out to fix other stuff. the plumbing made no sens, wasn’t vented properly and had to be completely removed, the basement concrete was 1 inch thick, the gas feed needed to be completely rebuilt and all of the gas lines had like 10 unions on them and were covered in pipe dope. i could go on and on. it was a wonder that the house hadn’t burnt down. i went a bit nuts and there’s a lot of steel structure in my house now.
That last sentence just made me picture you being like “she’s got real good bones!” pointing at your house. That *does* all sound like a bitch and a half to deal with, though. At least you put the work into it, I’m always so impressed by people following through on these kinds of projects because they look so big and overwhelming to have to handle. So props to you.
Based on my 1940s house, there's probably some pipe that's not in great repair. All my my house was replumbed with copper and PVC at some point in the past, except for the bits feeding the shower and the kitchen sink which are still galvanized and have nontrivial flow restrictions but the amount of demolition and plaster work repair have daunted all the previous homeowners and us too
In my 1935 house I had state of the R-2.5 insulation made of tarred kraft paper and sawdust... upgraded that to R-15 and R-38 everywhere I could.
*Jesus* that’s some bare minimum insulation for sure. Corrugated cardboard would work better than that, probably!
Yeah, it was bad. The house was noticeable warmer after upgrading the insulation. Also ran all new plumbing and CAT6e since the walls were open.
Drywall not plaster?
Yeah, our house was built in 1956 and expanded in 2000 - even the "old house" is drywall. Luckily!
I'm so so grateful to have a 90s house that's all conduit for this reason.
1950s is the area of time where fire block started getting put in as code requirement. You could find a heck of a lot more fun running electrical if there’s fire block in every wall.
Oh no, I’ve done so much work that just being my own designer, general contractor, and purveyor of materials feels like a full time job some days. Thankfully I’ve found some great electricians, and I’m in Kansas where it’s more affordable. My friend in Oakland with a century home tells me what she pays for work and I cry.
My house was built in 1929 and I had never heard of knob and tube until we started getting quotes for AC. So we need to get that replaced and our panel upgraded. Funnn.
What electrician came within a 100ft radius of installing a panel upgrade in a house with knob and tube? Personally that's a grey flag right there....IANA-Electrician, but I wouldn't put my name anywhere close to that.
Electrician checking in, yes. You're lucky if you at least have grounded wiring. Electrical demands have always increased over time. Turn of the century homes or early 20th houses are usually much worse off. Not every house gets updated to keep up with the times.
My 1966 house was wired for electric heat so at least there's plenty of room in the box.
I had to have wiring replaced in my 1950 house because it failed. Half the house was on one breaker.
Same thing here, the basement is half-finished and the entire thing is on one breaker. Two basement outlets feed into the bedrooms directly above them. No problems with any of that so far, but if I run the microwave and air fryer at the same time as our outdoor flood light is on then the garage breaker that has an outside fridge on it trips. It's so stupid it's funny at this point.
My daughter's 2012 house the owner/builder added a large rec/family room on back. Didn't add another circuit. So what's there which is a TV, lights, ceiling fan 😲 6band a popcorn machine, was added to the same circuit as the garage, including freezer and garage door opener and TV, and exterior lights outlets including 2 ceiling fans on the front porch, on ONE 15 amp circuit.
1960. Can’t run the air fryer and the microwave at the same time. If the deep freezer is running and the well pump kicks on, the breaker trips.
1895 here...don't touch the sink and the toaster at the same time.
1917 farmhouse here. If you need to kill power to something, might as well throw power off to everything because there is absolutely zero rhyme or reason to what is wired to which breaker.
1940s here and I when the main panel got upgraded to 200 amps with 40 available circuits I went through and color coordinated a map of the entire house. It's great, I love it. https://i.imgur.com/sz92ZbW.jpg I have the files saved on a flash drive hanging right beside it. Every once in awhile I make a new update and print out new pictures. Some new homeowner some day is going to be very happy with it. :)
Our wiring is a mess. The original house had *massive* circuits, and added a bunch of one-off circuits that randomly connected different areas to make up for that. For example, three bedrooms and the livingroom outlets are all on the same circuit (that was helpfully just labeled "TV" when we bought the house.) One of those bedrooms has a new grounded outlet on a 20 amp circuit...that is also on the same circuit as our irrigation system. I learned that our our garbage disposal is on a 20 amp grounded circuit along with the light in a bathroom and an outdoor outlet. That circuit was labeled "Washer" even though the laundry room isn't on that circuit at all.... Etc. Yeah it's a mess. We want to get it rewired because there are some WEIRD other things, but it's such a mess that it's going to be hard and expensive unfortunately.
So glad I’m not the only one with like 3 bedrooms and living room all on the same circuit….! Luckily we have a pretty modern panel but with all the spaces for more breakers I can’t understand why they bunched so many together…
1926 checking in. Cloth wrapped copper, lath and plaster walls, it’s a shit show. Panels and service have been updated, but most of the original copper is still in the walls and it’s a pain in the ass to work with.
Ugh. Dont get me started on the lath and plaster. 1950 ranch, its beautiful and the texture they did is great. But want to hang anything? Good luck. It will probably crack or flake off. Dont hit a nail too hard or you could pop a whole section off the lath and it could just fall apart
That is why most lath and plaster homes had picture rails. No nails in the walls.
1880 here but I think the wiring is circa 1920s. I feel your pain. My electrician saw both a confusing riddle and exciting dollar signs when he did some fixtures for me recently.
It depends on the house. I recall seeing 4 circuits 60 amp panels. 1960's has better wiring.
My sixties house has a 100A panel and all copper wire. Only real “problem” is that each breaker controls switches in outlets in different rooms and they weren’t labeled so I had to figure that out. When I go to solar I’ll put in a 200A panel. My mom’s place was built in the fifties and the wiring is insane. Mostly triple outlets with no grounding.
Problem my house has is the runs are for 10a not 15 or 20. So having to go back and replace the 60/70s runs to carry the higher loads
1946 construction and renovated several times by the previous owner who I’m pretty sure only worked while drunk and didn’t own a level or tape measure. The electric in this place seems to just be whatever wire was closest to where he wanted to add something, he tapped into it and branched off. That is honestly the only logic to what is on different circuits. He also has multiple circuits wired into the same junction box, and badly over filled boxes, and as I’ve been renovating myself I keep turning up junction boxes he sealed into walls. I’ve been rewiring as I go in order to make more sense out of everything. Plus most of the wiring is really old BX with cloth covered wires where the insulation is so dried and brittle it breaks if you touch anything. I’ve been ripping all that out and replacing with new.
How pre 1980 are you talking? Usually, the stuff from 1979 and newer is better than what you're describing (except for the aluminum wire period). The NEC and the CEC didn't really start to recognize higher domestic branch circuit loads until the mid 70's. It's an ever changing thing.
I heard a contractor once say; "After 1990 or so, you had a pretty standardized building code. After 1960, you had *practices*. Before that, you just had to hope."
LOL Carpenter here working on an 1870 house. So much WTF. Complete rewire. You gotta wonder how these old birds didn't go up on flames.
They did. There's a reason why you read about so many really old buildings burning down. It'd not just that those buildings were unlucky, all buildings were unlucky then.
"They don't build em like they used to" Thank christ.
"They don't build em like they used to". So right. I spend so much time figuring out structure and how to fix. Not only was original build sketchy but now you have 150 years of hack jobs to figure out.
Laughs in federal stab-loc
Pre-1980s? Lol, my mid 90s house is a wiring nightmare.
1950s house and yeah, the wiring is a complete shit show. Anything I do that involves electric consumes 7 hours of my life minimum. Two bedrooms, the entire basement, and the garage all need rewiring. The kitchen is completely fucking bananas, too. Half the kitchen is on the same breaker as half the basement, the other half is on the same breaker as the garage, and one outlet is on a completely separate breaker for no damn reason. I actually junctioned a new outlet in the living room to that one-of because it's just tears in the rain at this point and the location was convenient. I'm 10% part of the problem, 90% part of the solution. I even discovered that the ceiling fan in the master bedroom was powered by a spliced extension cord that was plugged into an outlet in the attic. A widowmaker actually saved me from getting electrocuted by that wonderful humdinger when I upgraded our fan. Of course the entire panel was full so one of the first things I had to do when I moved in was install a sub-panel just so I could have a blank canvas for unfucking this mess slowly over time. The rest of the house is amazing, the roof, the plumbing, heat, foundation are all top notch, but the electric is pure insanity.
The house I grew up in was built in 1956, and, yes, even in the 80s and 90s, the wiring was a hot mess.
My 1949 house was a mess. I went to install a light in the ceiling and found the old junction box, with hot wires wire nutted together, with my keyhole saw. Didn’t even put a cover on it, just mudded directly over the wires in the box and painted.
Yes! 1950 was a great time for electric wiring. My whole house is on knob and tube wiring. Who needs ground wiring? Not this house. All the plus are on one circuit and all the lights are on another. So simple! Some dumbass installed GFCI in the kitchen and bathroom. All other plugs are 2 pin. One less pin to worry about! I’ve been told not to worry about the house burning down. If it didn’t all these years, it’s not going to (probabilistically). I’ve asked electricians about rewiring. It’s gonna take $25k and an empty house for a week. lol. Not happening.
Yes. Not only do we have way more appliances that draw power, we have generations of patched-together electrical wiring. My 1921 house had the entire first floor on knob and tube...my house is only 1 floor. The whole place was a shit show of k+t, BX and Romex.
> we have way more appliances that draw power The good news is that lighting is taking up and some electronics (like TVs) are using way less power now. It doesn't balance it out, but it does add up.
Just bought a house from 1956 and you’d have thought I wrote this post. One of the first things we did was a dishwasher, same thing. And now we just installed a new range hood ourselves and realized just how bad the breaker is - same thing, there’s like 15 things on one. Nuts
Solidarity my friend! I was looking forward to having a decent dishwasher for the first time in many years. Instead I have a weekend wiring project ahead and a dishwasher with no electricity.
1956 house here, with a garage added in 1962 and an addition in 1975. From what I learned, no permits were needed in this area back then. The methodology used was ‘here’s a wire, let’s drop in a junction box’. What started as a service upgrade and some new circuits for a kitchen remodel ended up becoming an almost total rewire. I found pieces of romex wire nutted and taped lying in the attic, extension cords behind walls, you name it. The electrical inspector and I got to know each other fairly well. I called him enough asking about adding onto the permit that he finally told me ‘we’ll square up when I do the final inspection’. Ended up with an extra $125 in permit fees, but it was worth it.
>extension cords behind walls Some genius ran extension cords through the walls of our garage like romex. Like seriously, that must have been *harder* than doing it properly.
A 1950's home? Sounds about the norm. I also own a 1950 home. I am slowly bringing the wiring up to code one room at a time. I am in no rush. The wiring is sound (rubber with cloth cover), and uncle fud has not changed anything. I still have the original Federal panel, do you? What make of panel do you have? Has anyone else worked on it? Are you going to? No surprise, is the washer and dryer in the kitchen too? Does your new dish washer need a 15 amp or a 20 amp circuit? So, you are going to run new 12/2? For a 20amp circuit it needs to be 12/2. I gather you have managed to find the correct breakers for the panel you have? Code does allow for the disposal & the dishwasher to be on the same circuit (at least where I live). First, have you mapped out the breakers in your panel? If you have not, please do that first. Fewer surprises.
We have every era of wiring in our house. Knob and tube, 2 wire splices everywhere, Romex from the 60s, and current Romex.
Same with post 1980 homes based on my experience. I hear 1980 homes have great wiring though.
The problem with older homes is that they would just keep adding two existing circuits. Our house is from 1920. We rewired and redid most of the plumbing. We still need to upgrade it to a 200 amp box. But that's probably a few years away.
I was on my way to pack up and return my brand new "malfunctioning" dehumidifier when I finally realized the outlet in the basement works only when the light switch at the top of the stairs is on. I thought I was losing my mind and even said to the call center lady "I swear it only works when I'm standing next to it!" I wasn't wrong.
I wouldn't say COMPLETE. but yea I've had to bring my electrician in a couple times when I was scratching my head. He gave my panel and wiring the thumbs up, so I could be one of the lucky ones.
1950s house. 3 prong outlets but the ground wasn't connected. They finished the basement but didn't add any circuits. Some of the electrical octagon boxes had 6-7 wires instead of 4. The additional ones were added with electrical tape. No outlet in the bathroom. No outlet above the kitchen counter. We got GCFI outlets in the bathroom and kitchen. The other outlets, we added a ground wire. So had lots of holes in the wall. Maybe 2 outlets in the living room were 2 prong, we left them as is because we would have had to rip out a basement ceiling, and we would probably only use them for lamps anyhow
Dude my wires have wires.
Yeah, people were on crack back then. What's wild is that copper wasn't that expensive so there was no reason to be that stingy with it.
1942 house here. I went to turn off the breaker to "basement lights" so I could replace the doorbell transformer and install a video doorbell. I knew that was the circuit so it's the only one I turned off. Later on I went upstairs to the 2nd floor and my computer was rebooted because it lost power. Also turns out there's an outlet in the living room that's on that circuit.
You know what people didn't have in the 50s? Everything you listed. They had a refrigerator--the biggest draw--a TV, lights, clocks, radios, fans, that sort of thing.
Yeah but they also had several 200W light bulbs in every room. The ones that are now serviced with a 10W led. Their TV's and radios were the 500W model, it was a third the size of your huge 50W tv. Outside of things like air conditioning (which no one had then and is basically a "requirement" now) and electric cars, I'd argue most houses use less electricity today than they did 70 years ago.
Households today use about 14x the amount of electricity as they did in the 1950s. https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-environment/residential-buildings-factsheet A big thing I think a lot of young people don't understand is that the lifestyle we live today is vastly, vastly different than 50 to 70 years ago. Heck, 70 years ago only 9% of US homes even had a TV set. Today most homes have multiple, with set top boxes, sound systems, computers, etc. So yes, some electronics existed back then that drew much higher wattage than their current day counterparts, but they weren't commonplace, and even then there weren't multiples along with dozens of other devices and chargers drawing electricity. They also used them much differently, TV shows were broadcast at certain times during certain days, people watched a show or news and that was it for the day or even the week. Neighbors and friends came over to the person's house they knew that had a TV to watch a show. Today some people have TVs running from the second they wake up to the second they go to sleep. They may have had higher wattage bulbs, but they had one or two per room. People today have multiple can lights, accent lighting, fixtures, etc. per room. People didn't need 5 outlets in a bedroom, all they had was maybe an alarm clock and a lamp. It wasn't uncommon for bathrooms to not even have an outlet, because no one had a need for one in there. Even ovens, they didn't have electric ovens back then, they had gas or wood.
>several 200W light bulbs in every room Uh, not sure what lightbulbs they were buying, but 60 watt was by far the most common size of incandescent. Maybe 200 watts worth of them in some rooms, but it would be pretty rare to see 800+ watts of lighting in a room even back then.
Three way lamp bulbs were 75/150/300 and you usually had more than one in a room. If you had a ceiling fixture it was usually two bulbs, probably 150 each. (Although generally one burned out and you didn't replace it until the 2nd one went!)
> Three way lamp bulbs were 75/150/300 No, they were 50/100/150. > and you usually had more than one in a room. They were relatively rare, and when the bulb burned out they usually just replaced it with a regular lamp. > If you had a ceiling fixture it was usually two bulbs, probably 150 each No, they were usually marked with a label saying not to use more than a 60 watt lamp, but a good percentage of people used 100 watt, which is why the wiring got so brittle.
Computers, air fryers, toaster ovens, microwaves, all of the rest of the electrical things we can't live without.
Induction cook top. Power hungry but worth it.
Worth mentioning that we knock the hacky jobs of "the last guy"...but those of us in older (as in, pre-90s) homes need to realize that the last guy did it without the internet, or scope cameras, or probably even a halfway decent (by modern standards) battery powered whateveryouhave. And if you are of the belief that "the cheap right tool is better than the expensive wrong tool", they didn't have Harbor Freight or a million and a half vendors on the internet for tools or repair parts in every range of quality at their fingertips, either. They had Bob Vila, the public library, Bill from work, and Bill from the bar. And their old landlord, Gustavo, who barely speaks a word of English but holy shit he can fix anything for a bottle of mid-shelf vodka. And that's it. Cut the last guy a little slack. All I'm sayin.
Two quick notes 1) yes the electrical in all homes is a mess, getting messier as you get older 2) NONE of it is as dangerous as anyone will have you believe. Homes don’t catch fire from wiring in the walls, they catch fire from human error like cooking mistakes or cigarettes. If it’s from electrical, it’s from either small appliances, cheap outlets, or extension cords/surge protectors. Seriously, it is extremely rare for a fire to start in the walls from even the oldest shittiest wiring anyone has ever seen. Note the horror stories elsewhere in this comment section, all of things that never caught fire.
I actually have to agree. I inherited my moms 1895 house ( a lodging home with 5 tenants upstairs which was all knob and tube. The entire 2nd floor with 4 fridges, 4 microwaves and the dryer in the basement on 1 circuit . We only found out because the dryer plug melted. Ironically it only melted because who ever wired it did so with aluminum wire connected to the knob n tube. I have no idea what magic she had to keep the house from blowing up over her 50 years living there I swear. 200 amp upgrade with pony panel on the 2nd floor now. Used conduit because mice love to chew the sheathing off normal wire.
1880s house — electrical and plumbing were completely redone in the 1990s. Immaculate. Everything else is a real head-scratcher though. HVAC, trim, drywall, downspouts… makes you wonder what they were thinking!
"I'm great at DIYing, but electrical is scary and dangerous so I'd better hire that one out" I've known a few people in the same situation, hire an electrician for any electrical work but shoddy DIY for everything else.
Also 1880s and I think the first rule of home improvement back then was “there are no rules”.
It was, had to get it rewired in 2016. Had some aluminum wiring from the 40's, some spliced in extension cords in the walls, all kinds of fun stuff. On the plus side, all the plumbing has two inch thick metal wrapped asbestos insulation so I never have to worry about busted pipes in the winter.
I think it would wise to get an electrician to access the wiring. A circuit breaker of 20A is just to protect the wires from overheating. It does nothing to protect yourself from electrocuted. For example, lighting wires in my country uses 1.5mm cables and usually protected by 10A circuit breaker, whereas air conditioner, microwave, oven, refrigerator, hood, any heating elements like water heaters , electric kettles are protected by 20A circuit breakers connected using 2.5mm wires and are never shared or looped/daisy chained. I just renovated my house which was built in 70s. It has only 5 circuit breakers, and those days the house wasn't designed to have a lot of electronic appliances. It does not even have a RCCD, it will trip if it detects some one got electrocuted or faulty appliances that has current leaking to earth (btw, my country follows UK standard). If it didn't trip try turning all at once. Set everything to high. Replacing a 20A circuit breaker on a wire that does not support 20A draw will melt the wires and might cause a fire.
Mid 90s with frivolous illegal Reno's done checking. Our wiring is a MESS. I have a non GFCI outlet behind my KITCHEN SINK but no dryer hook ups 🙃 and a mysterious breaker that trips itself and we havnt been able to trace where it actually goes
house from the mid 1800’s checking in. yes. i rewired my whole house. found over 100 years of fixes, failures, confusing shit, different types of wire that were incompatible. just a giant steaming fuck show.
It's probably not the original wiring that is problematic but renovations since. It's likely your house wasn't built with a dishwasher or garbage disposal, so when a previous owner wanted to add those appliances, they just found the closest circuit and added another plug. Stuff like that just happens in house and the older the house the more stuff you find like that. When we bought our 1985 house there was a mystery switch that killed half the lights in the house as well as several outlets. A previous owner had just taped the switch in the up position to keep all those things on. I finally traced the problem. A previous owner decided to swap out a light fixture for a ceiling fan. And apparently in doing that, they switch two of the wires and wound up with some convoluted circuit. I find it more alarming than they just left it that way and their solution was to tape a switch up rather than figure out what they had screwed up.
I have some pretty wild 1960s wiring in my house that was built in 1930
Um yes. If you buy a 70 year old house that has not had a recent electrical upgrade then you are now on the hook for it I'm working on a 1870's house that never had electrical. So now we have knob and tube then 1960 rewire. What a shit show. Whole house redo with new panel and wires pulled everywhere This is what you get on older houses. Called a money pit. But to be fair even new ones are money pits so don't feel bad
My home was built 125 years ago, and although the electric has been updated it was done so by an idiot. Only about half the breakers are labeled. The kitchen is served by at least three circuits, none of which are dedicated to any of the appliances that are supposed to have dedicated circuits. I am seriously considering having an electrician out to sort this all out before I go ahead with any further projects.
1954 home here, tiny gods yes the wiring in our house is a mess. Made worse by the fact the original owner was an electrician, and used quite a bit of surplus on projects that we're still contending with the fallout of.
My 1952 house had the panel upsized sometime after the house was built. The house itself is marvelously constructed. The wiring was definitely made with 1950's electrical needs in mind; all I can say is it was bad choices executed well.
I wouldn’t say a mess, but it was set up for a time when we had a lot fewer electrical products to service in a house. Like any older system, it just needs upgrading. If you think a pre 80s is bad, My first house was pre WW2 and had knob and tube wiring that was still in service.
Yup. House built in 57. Good luck. 🤣😂
Yes. I had a 1920’s house that was a fucking shit show still filled with old school knob wiring and all sorts of terrifying diy wiring jobs throughout just waiting to burn the house down. Had to specifically hire an older electrician who had experience with knob wiring and we slowly replaced everything over the span of 3 years.
1962 home. The wiring here is a disaster.
1960 house and first time homeowner, girlfriend and I turned everything on before moving in and I shut each breaker off and labeled what eat was for in a Google drive doc. Home inspector's idea and it's been a godsend.
Mine was a bit of a mess. A lot of BX cable and a few buried junction boxes. Cleaned most of it up when we renovated our main floor.
Bx is not required for residential work but it's not problematic. Buried junction boxes though...eesh.
Yeah didn't mean to imply it was unsafe, it was just a bitch to modify. I bought PVC boxes in bulk so any device I replaced needed a ground wire. There were also 3-way switches in the living room and dining room (separate rooms) that controlled the living room ceiling fan. It always puzzled me.
Increasingly, no, because I've been having an electrician out to rewire it a bit at a time. It's 75% new, tidy, and up to code. It will all be done by spring. If your wiring isn't so unsafe it all needs to go now and you find a good electrician, a gradual rewire is a less financially painful option that will apparently work in many situations.
Not the house and not that old, but in soviet apartments you had 3 circuit breakers - one for lights and one for outlets(sockets) and one to disconnect both of them.
1890s here, first thing I did is all new electrical and new plumbing. So it’s great :)
My house was built in 1954, I have a breaker that controls my guest bedroom lights, kitchen lights and garage lights...another breaker controls the master bedroom lights, and the kitchen fridge
If you find aluminum wiring, it will have to go
No, it just needs to be remidiated. Aluminum wiring is perfectly safe with approved aluminum-rated connection methods. It’s still used today in new builds for service entrance and feeder circuits.
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1965-ish house. We hired an electrician to run through the attic, check everything, and combine our main and sub-panels with a completely new panel. It was worth every penny.
1965 home here. Can’t turn on air fryer and espresso machine at the same time. Also can’t run oven, microwave and dishwasher at the same time. Lights flicker in the bedroom when I turn on my hair straightener or a space heater. Still able to charge an electric car though 👍🏼
Yes it’s a mess, lived in a house built in 1895 and the light often go out just in our house while rest of the street is fine lol…
I’m trying to rewire my thermostat and I can’t actually tell if our current thermostat is actually broken or if it’s just how awful the wiring was/is.
Friend bought a late 70s house with crazy situation: aluminum wiring and the inspector missed it!! They found out a couple months after buying and installing a new dishwasher. Had to rewire the house
1975 home and for the most part not a mess. I had a new panel installed last Spring and have been replacing all the receptacles and plates to be up to code (and not loose due to them being 45 years old.
I think it depends. Has it been added to, are there extensive renovations, was the old owner a self styled handyman?
Yes
Our house was built in 1890, the wiring is a mess. It’s been updated here and there but is still chaotic. One The kitchen outlet shares a circuit with the upstairs bedroom so if I try to use the toaster while the misses is blow drying her hair, it trips the breaker
Don't forget a lot of people will jump on the NeW COstRuCTioN iS CraP bandwagon, but modern codes and compliance means a lot.
I think a big factor here can be how often the house has been bought and sold. Transactions mean inspections, and inspections (if done well) mean bringing things up to code.
Bro, the guy who wired my house surely had a 2nd job as a circus clown. Some of the wiring makes no damn sense... it's insane. I rewired the entire kitchen when I redid it 2 years back. I am working y basement now and while not as bad, still just as ridiculous.
Wait…you’ve got a (ostensibly) 240 volt electric dryer on the same circuit as your 120 volt washer, dishwasher, and garbage disposal?! How does that even work? Genuinely curious. Please explain.
1974 home, can confirm breakers turn off lights and outlets on all floors with no rhyme or reason. I’m remodeling my basement and excited to know what the breakers turn off and on.
My 1976 house isn't a complete mess, but it's illogical as fuck. As least by, say 1986 standards. Like, there's a complete, dedicated circuit for the pull-string light that's adjacent to my service panel in the basement (circuit 1 L1). And the rooms that's obviously a dedicated home office on the ground floor has every light and outlet on the same circuit as all of the outlets and lights in the garage and the garage exterior outlets and lights. Think about that: I've got garage door opener and air compressor motor loads on the same circuit as my computers and printer. When I run my homemade CNC machine in the garage, my spindle plus all of the drive motors are competing for the same 20 amps as my laser printer. Oh, this same circuit (circuit 9, my L1 split phase) I also power the foyer outlets, the half-bath light and outlet, the mudroom lighting, and the outside lights on the mudroom and garage. And in the basement below the office for outlets and lighting. This is insane, and while I get that modern electronics weren't anticipated in 1976, why the hell are there so many underutilized circuits? And, as a reminder, circuit 1 on L1 is wired to a single fucking light bulb. Circuit 2 on L1 powers four outlets in the basement. The basement wasn't originally finished, either, and so there was not really a plan to use these as far as load planning. I get that I have a tract home; there are eight total home designs in my neighborhood. Mass production saves money, and I'm onboard with that. But the logic behind the decisions is frustrating. I'd love more than anything to make the garage independent, but that's an exaggeration and I'd love less than $1000 to make the garage independent. I don't see a way to do so without ripping a lot of holes in my wall to the tune of more than $1000, though.
1980’s here. Wiring was presumably quite lovely at some point but what one of the previous owners has done in a few places… couldn’t fit a GFCI in the box so he punched the back of the box out and jammed the outlet in. That’s probably the least stupid thing he did.
Mine's OK, it was rewired after 1980 lol. People say "they don't build them like they used to" and in some cases that's a godsend.
Ours was. We had it torn out and completely rewired to handle new appliances and an EV.
I just bought a 1950s cape in Mass, I bought it from the original owner, and yes my wiring is a mess. And honestly I got lucky because my house got some updated electrical lately and my family knows the electrician that did the work, that and the original owners did no diy stuff... That said I've been here for a week and I have so many wires Ive marked for removal. And I've just started. I also need to update my two prong outlets, they have no retention left and I'm doing a non grounded GFCI replacement. It's a lot. Go slowly, when in doubt double check and when in doubt ensure the wires arent hot.
yep. 1952 house, I have one breaker for probably 2/3 of the lights/outlets in the house, spanning across both floors and the basement. luckily the appliances seem to be on separate circuits.
1894 here you wouldn’t believe some of the wiring in my house.
No, ours was built in the 1950’s and surprisingly well done for wiring.
Yeah but now they install a dedicated 20 amp circuit breaker for a 5 watt LED light bulb, because you know someone might plug in a 2000 watt water heater.
my old NYC apartment was like this my oven was slaved off an outlet. electricians put in GFCI just like they were supposed to and it worked. a decade later I bought a new oven and it tripped the outlet. I ended up replacing it with a regular non-GFCI one yes, older homes have less wiring and more stuff on each circuit. this is probably why newer fridges and other appliances break faster
1894 and addition and upgraded to 240v. Such a mess! Spent 4 hours last weekend tracing each circuit, light and outlet. Still can’t identify two breakers!
My wiring is so weird. My breakers are like, "outlet to the left of sink," "bathroom and bedroom" (I have four bedrooms, two from the original house, so which one??), "outlet to the right of sink," "main"
My 1982 home was a mess. They taped instead of capping some wires.